Word: one
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Shah's victims simply cannot be compared to the millions killed by Hitler and Stalin; nor can the tenor of his regime be likened to that of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union. Even among contemporary despots, the Shah is not the worst. One prominent member of the International Commission of Jurists classifies the Shah as in a "second league" of tyrants, below Uganda's Idi Amin, Cambodia's Pol Pot and Central African Emperor Jean Bokassa I. One Iranian expert notes that the Shah often exiled enemies rather than killing them...
Even in this grim area, rational distinctions must be made. Is there justification for calling the Shah a criminal and treating him as one? If so, the same would have to apply to scores of other rulers, rightist or leftist. Moreover, Iran, like many developing countries, has never known any really free institutions. And cruelty, by whatever regime, has always been a fact of life there and in many other countries the U.S. must live with. These considerations do not exonerate the Shah, but they must be kept in mind by the U.S. as it tries to cope with...
...Power, British Journalist Robert Graham published a 3½-page list of holdings of the Pahlavi Foundation that he was able to track down as of the end of 1977 and that he estimated to be worth $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion. They included total ownership of Bank Omran, one of Iran's largest banks; 80% ownership of Bimeh Melli, the nation's third largest insurance company; and full or partial interests in auto factories (10% of GM Iran), cement plants, sugar mills, housing projects and a string of hotels, including the Tehran Hilton. Indeed, Graham estimates that...
Whatever the size of the Shah's personal fortune, he ran a corrupt government from first to last. Foreign companies frequently had to pay "commissions" to government officials or members of the royal family to get any kind of contract in Iran. One example: between 1973 and 1975 the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc., which was selling choppers to the Iranian air force, paid a $3 million commission to a company that turned out to be secretly owned in part by a brother-in-law of the Shah. The Shah indirectly acknowledged the corruption by periodically announcing drives...
...aggrandizement than a desire to retain tight control of the Iranian economy and win the loyalty of subordinates by lavish financial favors. Nonetheless, the Shah in power lived very well, to put it mildly. He shuttled among five palaces in Iran. Journalist Fallaci, interviewing the Shah in 1973 in one of them, noted that "almost everything in the place was gold: the ashtray that you didn't dare dirty, the box inlaid with emeralds, the knickknacks covered with rubies and sapphires." The ruler's sisters also basked in opulence. Princess Ashraf Pahlavi owns two town houses...